Here is another suggestion. If you do not want to change to clear plastic wrap at least stamp the envelope with periodical so that the post office knows that it is a magazine. That way they will not dump it in with all the other junk mail.

Still not here.

The magazine has arrived this afternoon. I guess I must have beat the phone books.

Nothing, zilch, nada, zippo in NW KS yet on Feb 12. That is 13 Post Office business days so tomorrow I will call ACMOC to send another one.

I'd have no problem going to all First class, There are some, maybe even most that don't get the magazine just for the want adds, but for the stories and pictures of past events. Just for comparison I joined ATHS while at the winter convention and the dues there are $42 per year. I think HCEA dues are around $30 per year.

Now as Paul Harvey says I'll tell you a little more than I know, which isn't much. I'm just a Rural Carrier in a one horse office out in fly over country. Somewhere in one of GWH's post he said periodicals get priority treatment. I hope you aren't confusing the two. Periodicals are not priority nor are they first class. It used to be and I think still is the case that the more preparation that is done by the mailer, the less the cost, and the more direct the service is. Periodicals work well when you have large concentrations of pieces going to each Post Office. I may not be exact on this , but close. If you have at least 24 pieces going to an office, you can bundle them and sack them to go directly to that office. If not and you have at least 24 going to a 3 digit area. (my zip code is 66962, the 3 digit area I refer to is 669) they can be sent to more of a regional processing center to be distributed from there. These are the fastest ways to make periodicals work. If the concentration is less than that, they would go to the bigger processing plants and be distributed to the regional plants then to the local offices. which means more delays. There are, as GWH stated, quite a bunch of rules and regulations controlling periodical mailings. There are companies that can bundle magazines from several different companies or organizations together to get the concentration high enough to ship directly to each office. Also the major publications like Time, Newsweek, USA Today and the like will drop ship theirs right to the regional processing centers to have them delivered the next day. They don't just magically appear in mail boxes across the country on the same day without a lot of preparation and planning. Maybe the answer is to go out and sign up all of your friends and neighbors to be members in ACMOC.

I guess what I am trying to say, however poorly, is I hope you aren't thinking that simply switching to periodical class mail is the be all-end all and everyone will get their magazine on the same day from coast to coast. That isn't going to happen even if they are sent all first class.

I don't know who you are using to publish the magazine or if it is self published and printed. Peoria is a big enough city that it should have customer service representatives there, and there are people whose job is to help with these types of mailings. My suggestion is take a magazine and your mailing list to the main Post Office and ask to speak to the Postmaster or customer service rep and get their advice and have them explain the options and pluses or minuses of each type of service. It may be best to call and make an appointment. If you don't get help, ask to speak to their supervisor. Contrary to popular belief they are there to help you. The Post Office is filled with a lot of good people. The problem is it only takes one bad apple along the way to really fowl things up. But that is true with a lot of things, whether it be the court system, or contractors, mechanics, repair people or anyone we have to deal with in life. There has only been One Perfect Man in all of history and He died and rose again to save the rest of us.
Jim

Thee are 2 separate issues here and it is important to keep them both in mind as they most likely have a different solution.

1) Slow delivery of the magazine. This seems to be a problem regardless of the mailing class. Obviously, third class takes longer on average than first class. This is pretty much an informed subscriber choice.

2) Desire to have access to the classified adds while there is still a reasonable probably of making a purchase.

As to the classifieds. Other organizations that have a large volume of classified adds have a web site that is accessed by password and user name where the new adds are posted when the print publication hits the mail. This seems to work well. These publications exist solely on add revenue. The forum here could be set up with a closed Magazine Subscriber Only area where the adds are posted. For those subscribers without a computer, if this is setup to be properly user friendly, they could go to the local library and the librarian could help them access the add site. I would think a separate area under www.acmoc.org would be the easiest to implement.

Jim and OldNuc, I have carefully read your posts above and have sent them to our committee. We will be discussing them on Thursday. Rome wasn't built in a day, but we'd like to see this constant, and worsening, problem corrected soon. Thanks for your posts. GWH

Jim D4&6 is a well informed postal employee, and thanks to his help and insight, I got a problem straightened out. I think I have found another nominee for the board of directors To add to this, I spent several years as a stoopidvisor @ UPS. I ran loading and unloading docks as well as the Smalls Sort area which is the UPS equivalent to the mail. I can say that the mechanization of a large hub like those in the Chicago region are not envelope friendly, the mail service is a bit more hands on in it's ability to handle large volumes of small letter sized packages. Nontheless, I am sure damage and lost packages regularily ooccur. I can personally recount the untold riches that fell from the sky when some company decided to send a mass mailing of the newly minted Suzan B Anthony Dollar coin in flimsy envelopes. About $500 worth got torn up on my loading dock and fell to the floor under the conveyor belt. I gave up trying to return them to the torn packages because they were so mutilated. I just called Loss Prevention and had them pick them all up.

I agree with Jim that a local Postal Customer Rep be contacted and discuss at length the difficulties we are experiencing. I know that Chicago is rated as one of the worst areas for mail delivery, but that is not an applicable excuse. If the mag is routed through the Chicago hubs, maybe a different drop ship point is in order. AND they announced that the cost of a stamp is going up another cent in May! That Darned Jim H just had to go and ask for a raise!

P.S. Still no magazine here in Chicago

Recieved mine today,here in central California.

It's here in out back californa:p

B4D2 you should get yours now since I have received mine this afternoon. The magazine is on it's way north to you.